


he was pointing at the moon but i was looking at his hand

by fairmanor



Series: Tough Talks [7]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Because that's a favourite headcanon of mine, Boys In Love, Brief mention of trans Moira, Costumes, Fluff, M/M, Queer Discussion, cabaret, identity crisis, queerness, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: Patrick's Emcee costume arrives at his door. He tries it on, and David and Patrick talk about identity.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Tough Talks [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918438
Comments: 15
Kudos: 151





	he was pointing at the moon but i was looking at his hand

**Author's Note:**

> \- This one was a struggle to write because I was trying to convey a very specific message and I _think_ I've got it to where I want it to be, but when it comes to writing about queerness I don't think I'll ever be quite satisfied because it's so difficult to articulate.
> 
> \- I don't see it written very often, but trans Moira is one of my favourite headcanons ever. 
> 
> \- Thanks to justwaiting23 for the moral support!

The box arrives on his doorstep mere seconds before David does, who seems to be chasing the parcel like a starving man crawling to the end of a desert.

Patrick stumbles back from the entrance to the apartment, almost dropping the cheeseboard he’d made up for David’s impending visit as his boyfriend barrels through the door, still left unlocked from the postman’s recent delivery.

“Wha– David, what’s all this?”

David leans against the doorframe to catch his breath, staring at the parcel like it’s a ticking bomb but with a jarring glint of unadulterated excitement in his eyes that makes Patrick even more baffled about what’s inside it.

Between heaving breaths, David says, “My mom…always said – _fuck, those stairs are steep –_ nope, she didn’t say that. She… _whew_ …said…only trying on a costume for the first time at a dress rehearsal is like a snake trying to fit into its shedded skin.”

Patrick tilted his head. “And that means…what, exactly?”

David points at the box. “That your costume for the Emcee is in there, and we get to try it on now.”

“Why didn’t your mom just deliver the parcel to my door herself instead of paying for postage?”

“Dramatic effect.”

Patrick sighs, putting down the cheeseboard – which David immediately snatches up and starts scarfing down – and moving gingerly towards the parcel. Grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer, he sets the cardboard box down on the coffee table and slices it open carefully, David hovering at his side like a kid watching their parent open the very first gift they bought of their own volition. Patrick lifts the flaps and David gasps softly.

“Oh my…”

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “Wow.”

Suspenders and bows. Some three-quarter length black slacks. A white tank top that he can already tell is too small. A small stick of eyeliner.

It’s simple, but it’s not.

“Well?” David says, expectant.

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “Hm. _Well.”_

Truth be told, Patrick has been slightly dreading this moment ever since they made it to the end of the show in rehearsals and went off-book. Ever since he started acting the lines instead of reading, learning that damn dance, putting on the accent. He knew it wasn’t meant to be anything like him, this character. That’s what acting was. He’d done plenty of it in the past. He knows far too much more about pretending than he wished he did.

But this…this is different. The Emcee is different. He’s an embodiment, a generalisation; someone so unapologetic and chaotic and unhinged and free, someone whose energy cries _queer_ before anything else, and Patrick doesn’t feel…ready for it. Doesn’t feel qualified. Stepping into the Emcee’s shoes feels like knocking loudly on the door of a house that he doesn’t own yet, screaming to be let in. Like he’s imposing.

“Stop it,” David says. Patrick shakes out of his reverie.

“Stop what?”

“Thinking about it.”

Patrick shrugs, a self-deprecating laugh forcing its way through his nose on an exhale. “Suppose it’s kind of hard not to, when it’s right there. And when…”

David is silent and waiting, those beautiful eyes trained on him patiently.

“And when I really don’t feel like this character at all,” Patrick says.

“You’re not the owner of a seedy nightclub in Weimar Germany,” David says, “of course you don’t.”

“I –”

“And that’s all there is to it.”

David’s voice is firm, but warm. Patrick wants to hear more. He slowly closes the flaps of the cardboard box and sits down, absent-mindedly opening his mouth to the cracker loaded with cranberry compote and brie that David is holding out for him. The tart fruit explodes across his tongue. Mingled with the cool, salty creaminess of the brie, it’s just heaven.

“Mmm, we need to never stop stocking Zainab’s preserves,” he says round his mouthful.

David nods, filling up his own cracker. “Agreed.” Patrick watches him spread the soft cheese in a circle, filling up the corners of the cracker perfectly, and placing some thin slices of fig on top. David meets his eye.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Patrick shrugs. “I just like watching you do things. With…your fingers.”

“Patrick Brewer, do you mean to tell me that watching me eat a cracker is turning you on?” David says, smirking.

“Maybe it is,” Patrick says, plucking the final bite out of David’s hands so he can feed it to him. He lets David lick the remnants of cheese off his fingers, and Patrick can’t help being pulled in after that. He kisses David slowly, his tongue sliding across David’s with a soft, dreamy languor that leaves them both weak at the knees. He moves to slide his hands up David’s sweater but David hums a ‘no’ into the kiss, pushing Patrick’s hands down.

“Not yet, I want to see this costume,” David says. Patrick sighs and turns back to the box, unbuttoning his shirt. It doesn’t take him long to get dressed, and when he does David is staring at him with eyes full of an intoxicating mix of endearment and desire.

“Look at _you,”_ he drawls, stepping closer and taking a fistful of the tight suspenders. He snaps them against Patrick’s pecs, making him yelp and jump back with a laugh.

“Ow! They’re already tight enough to begin with, I don’t need you making it any worse.”

David giggles and rubs his hand over the area. “How do you feel about it?”

Patrick tries not to shrink back, suddenly very uncomfortable. “Um…I don’t know.”

“Is it the wrong size?”

“No, the size is fine, David. I just…” Patrick rolls his shoulder back. He can feel the muscles in his mouth and brow tauten.

David looks down at the rest of the costume, his gaze lingering on the bow and how the material tightens at the V of Patrick’s hips. Not in an arousing way, Patrick notes. More…appraising. Thinking between the lines. Well, between the suspenders.

“Mkay, I want to know what you meant when you said you don’t ‘feel’ like this character,” David says, fingers splayed as they gesture over the costume in a wide loop. “What exactly is there not to feel? You’re just acting.”

Patrick sits down, gently pushing the cheeseboard away from the edge of the table. “I think you know I have my reservations, seeing as you emphatically told me something about that ‘being all there is to it’,” he adds.

“Conversation time?” David offers.

Patrick nods. “I think so.”

They know the shape of them now, these conversations. These talks. In the points of relationships where both of them used to plummet – Patrick before he broke up with Rachel, David with everyone who came before – their more serious talks feel like a net before the fall, as though nothing can go wrong as long as they’re still able to speak. Patrick would stop time to talk to David. Or perhaps he would let it keep going, let the time of his life run away from him as he sits on this couch and pours all he has into its cracks, and if David is the only one he ever sees again he would be satisfied that he had spent his time well.

He sits his back against one end of the couch, his feet coming out to meet David’s, who’s mirroring his position on the other side. The rub of socks against socks and David’s thumb tracing circles on the back of their linked hands is comforting.

“Do you seem to have a hard time playing the Emcee in rehearsals?” David asks.

Patrick thinks on it for a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I know all my lines, and it’s pretty fun, to be fair. I missed theatre. But…the costume just makes it more _real,_ you know?”

“What, the queerness of it all?”

Patrick smiles bashfully. He’s hit the nail on the head, as always. “Yeah. And I just feel like – I don’t know, like I’m imposing on a community that I haven’t been a part of for very long.”

“I know what you mean, but you have always been part of it, Patrick,” David says seriously. “You’ve always been gay.”

Patrick nods, and something settles inside him. Reminding himself of that, and slipping his identity like a shroud over the rest of his past life, makes everything make sense. “I know. Thank you.”

“Do you feel like you’re trying to be something you’re not by playing the Emcee?”

“Sort of,” Patrick says. “I know I’ve always been gay, so I shouldn’t, I don’t know, doubt my presence in the community, but the Emcee is someone who feels so…established. And it makes me second guess whether I’m doing this whole thing in the right way.”

David looks like he wants to laugh fondly, but he keeps it in. The fond laugh shines through his eyes instead, and Patrick relishes in the beauty of it as David pulls him closer until they’re sitting chest to back. David picks up the lukewarm mug of tea that was sitting half-drunk on the table when he arrived, and Patrick tuts and swats at David’s arm when he finishes it in one gulp.

“There’s nothing to _do,_ honey. Just because you’re queer and the character is queer, you shouldn’t let it get into your head like that. I can understand why it does, but there’s no right way to be queer. You know that.”

“I know.” Patrick shuffles until he’s slotted more firmly between David’s legs. “How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get so confident with yourself. You’re always so unapologetic. You know exactly who you are.”

Instead of demurring like he does when he gets a compliment he agrees with, like Patrick expects him to, David hums quietly and says nothing for a moment.

“I wouldn’t say I always knew exactly who I was,” David muses eventually. “I mean. My mom always tried to teach me to refuse to be anything but myself, but she was always so sure of her identity, so _comfortable_ , that it felt kind of hard. She transitioned way before I was born, so I never saw her go through the peak of her own queer experience.” David stops for a moment to collect his thoughts. “Queerness is whatever you make of it, but it’s also a chance to shuck heteronormative expectations and see what works for you,” he adds. “I think I’ve definitely used that in my own defence a couple of times.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, with not being gay, I’ve sort of felt at times like I had to…I don’t know, establish myself in the community. It always used to sting me a bit when people said they assumed I was gay – well, not at first, but then sometimes people would try and _tell_ me I was gay, so I kind of went through a phase in my late teens where I felt like any attraction I had to the opposite gender meant I didn’t belong. Like I was an impostor or something. I knew who I was, but there were always people from all angles, both in and out of the community, telling me that I was or wasn’t that person. So I kind of flaunted my queerness to spite all those people, and while it made me feel right, it also kind of left me feeling very – messy, I guess.”

Patrick leans in closer, pressing his weight into David comfortingly. David squeezes his shoulder.

“So bottom line is, queerness is complex and takes up a lot of brainpower.”

David laughs loudly. “Sounds about right, yeah.”

They both stare at the costume for a minute. David runs a gentler hand along the suspenders, as if they suddenly mean something different. Not more, not less, just…different.

“You know, I kind of like this for you,” he says quietly. “Getting a chance to explore your sexuality without it being any kind of defence mechanism. I know I certainly enjoyed it when I left behind some of the shitty people at high school and moved to New York. I wouldn’t say I was in a safe place there by a long shot, but in my LGBTQ-plus circles, in queer nightclubs that weren’t full of hard drugs, I definitely did.”

Patrick leans back until he’s gone too far, and has to scooch onto his left to curl up into David. He’s sitting on his lap now.

“I feel safe here,” Patrick says. David chuckles, scratching lightly at the soft hairs on Patrick’s neck.

“As you should,” David says. “And so do I. Safer than I ever did in New York. Or at home.”

“And if I don’t come away from the role feeling any different, that’s fine too,” Patrick affirms to himself, and David nods enthusiastically. “I’m just acting.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to turn into him to explore your identity. Like I said, you’re not the owner of a seedy nightclub in Weimar Germany.”

Feeling much more settled and validated than he did five minutes ago, David’s words incite a spark of playfulness in Patrick.

“Oh, but I could be, _mein Liebe,”_ Patrick says, laying the accent on thickly. David laughs in surprise as Patrick jumps up, striding across the apartment in a rough imitation of the first scene.

“Mein Damen und Herren, mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen!” he cries, his voice loud enough that David shushes him, gesturing to the wall that connects Patrick’s apartment to the one next door with a finger pressed to his laughing lips. They’ve racked up noise complaints for much quieter sounds before. Patrick wonders how many they’ll get on the night of the engagement he’s just bought the crackers for.

He lowers his volume but doesn’t stop performing, David laughing and half-hiding his face behind his hands as Patrick twirls and dances round his small apartment. This haven of theirs. This gorgeous, silent, hard-won basin of peace. This town, this _town_ and all its people who’ll spend the rest of their days simply letting them be. Letting them be themselves, letting them explore, only caring if they walk in on them kissing during store hours because it means they’ll have to wait a while before they can get some guidance on their purchases. They can put on this costume and play around with it and decide to fuck in it or put it back in its box and leave it for the dress rehearsal and all the while they’re just _being_ ; they’re existing, breathing, and every breath feels like the first one Patrick has taken in a long, long time. They can _be_ for as long as they want to be, drinking in the early summer sun and thinking about the future and later they might go for a walk and they’ll be in love.

Patrick knows he doesn’t have to take anything from being the Emcee. It’s not like this is the next level of queerness he has to achieve, just because it’s the kind of queerness everybody knows. It’s a misconception, really, that to be _more_ queer, he must let himself go, be wild, be free, be chaotic. He’s quieter in comparison, and content with the things he wears and the life he leads, and soon enough he’s sure that playing roles like this and exploring himself will be something he does as easily as he does everything else; as easily as loving his boyfriend. It’ll be fun, this role. It’ll be fun. Because it’s a _play._ And he’s _playing_ in it. Because he’s allowed to play freely now. Because sometimes the loudest, most radical queerness of all is softly holding the hand of the man you love, and chiding him for drinking your tea.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Thanks so much for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
> 
> \- This is essentially the ramblings of someone whose identity confuses her every day. David's bit about not feeling "queer enough" is particularly personal. I hope it doesn't come across like I'm implying that the way David presents himself is all an act, because that's definitely not what I'm trying to say!


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